The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
My bones are ringing the way sometimes people say their ears are ringing, I’m so tired. — David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. (Back Bay Books; 1st Paperback Ed edition February 1, 1997)
The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words. ― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King. (Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition April 15, 2011)
Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen. Die for one person? This is a craziness. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sickness, betray you,… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human […] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic. ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. (Back Bay Books; 1st Paperback Ed edition February 1, 1997)
When I say or write something, there are actually a whole lot of different things I am communicating. The propositional content (i.e., the verbal information I’m trying to convey) is only one part of it. Another part is stuff about me, the communicator. Everyone knows this. It’s a function of the fact there are so… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
Among pernicious myths is the one where people always get very upbeat and generous and other-directed right before they eliminate their own map for keeps. The truth is that the hours before a suicide are usually an interval of enormous conceit and self-involvement. ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. (Back Bay Books; 1st Paperback Ed… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
The story is underway. The aforementioned pre-sarcastic-interruption is because this man, in whom the instincts and inclinations are so strong and pure, is completely unable to control these strong and pure instincts and inclinations. What invariably happens is that the man meets a halfway or even quarterway desirable woman, and he immediately falls head over… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
The word ‘despair’ is overused and banalized now, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. It’s close to what people call dread or angst, but it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable sadness of knowing I’m small and weak and selfish and… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
The Vale of Soul-Making 